In April 2016, the SPRC supported Hamilton Organizing for Poverty Elimination and Hamilton Faith Communities in Action to organize a Social Audit, a process of examining the social assistance system through the stories of people who are experiencing it. The social audit involved a panel of Hamilton influencers from faith, education, health, media, and politics listening to the stories of 29 people, one at a time over three days. That experience has changed the way they think about poverty responses and how they can use their influence to help the community and the government think differently. This report includes a clearly written and poignant summary of those stories, some reflections from the auditors, and recommendations to all levels of government.

Community Partners: First Unitarian Church of Hamilton, Good Shepherd, Hamilton Organizing for Poverty Elimination, Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, Diocese of Hamilton, Anglican Diocese of Niagara, Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition

This submission to the federal government’s National Housing Strategy consultation is based in part on the City of Hamilton’s housing and homelessness action plan. The policy brief includes suggested federal strategies to address affordable housing, based on the SPRC’s own consultations in this area, as well sound policy proposals from Ontario’s Long Term Affordable Housing Strategy, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Big Cities Mayor’s Caucus, the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, and the Calgary Homeless Foundation.

Kiwanis Homes Inc. Victoria Park Community Homes Inc. and McGivney Community Homes Inc. partnered with the SPRC to create a project that would have a benefit to the South Mountain community and have a broader positive impact to the residents in the neighbourhood. This report is a demographic profile of this neighbourhood area, based on 2011 Census and National Household Survey data.

Using a variety of data sources, the Demographic shifts series of Hamilton’s Social Landscape bulletins explore differences between older and younger generations to uncover trends in a range of demographic characteristics of Hamilton’s population.

This report outlines the recommendations from 2016 community consultations with LGBTQ2+ community members and ally service providers on how to make Hamilton an LGBTQ2+ Positive city to work, live, learn and play.

Community Partners: Hamilton Community Foundation, United Way of Burlington & Greater Hamilton

This report is phase two of the “Mapping Community Assets” report recently produced by the Woman Abuse Working Group. It is intended to provide a baseline system overview of intimate partner violence and sexual violence of adult women.

Goals of this report include:

Educating the community and improving system coordination, including identifying deficits and gaps

This report surveys the landscape of payday lending in Hamilton, including the increase in payday loan outlets and the decrease in bank branches over the past 15 years. The report also examines trends in precarious employment, and what changes are needed so workers in these jobs, and other people living at or near the poverty line, can access more affordable financial services.

If you are a community, non-profit, or public organization looking for assistance with research, or if you have been approached by McMaster University researchers interested in conducting research with you, this guide is for you. It is a roadmap, designed to guide community organizations along the journey to collaborative research.

Paths to Research Collaboration is the product of a partnership between the Social Planning and Research Council (SPRC) of Hamilton and McMaster University. If you’d like print copies, please email macconnector@mcmaster.ca

The Hamilton Neighbourhood Action Strategy, the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, and the Hamilton Public Library, partnered to administer voter ID clinics during the 2015 federal election. The purpose of the clinics was to increase voter participation by breaking down barriers to voting, including acquainting voters with ID requirements and new changes to ID requirements, and helping people find their poll locations.

This report includes an overview of the clinics and the challenges associated with voter identification requirements, as well as recommendations for future clinics.

The federal election is on October 19, 2015. Use Canada Votes to help spark dialogue about social issues in Canada and put them on the public agenda.

On October 19, 2015 Canadians will come together to choose the direction of policy in this country for the next 4 years. Democracy works best when citizens engage in dialogue about the society in which we want to live. Canada Votes is a tool to help spark dialogue about social issues in Canada. The federal government has a role to play in addressing them – and you can help by talking about the social issues that matter to you and asking questions to find out what will be done.

Social planning organizations across the country are helping to strengthen communities and work on social justice issues. We also recognize the need to work together around key issues affecting our communities. We have come together to provide this publication on the federal election because we believe that democracy works best when citizens engage in dialogue on important issues.

Over the course of several months in 2014 a number of community partners in Hamilton collaborated to arrange and host a series of community events that would invite and assist eligible families with young children to register for the Canada Learning Bond. The Canada Learning Bond is offered by the Government of Canada to help parents establish savings for their child’s education after high school.

This report documents findings of the 2014 Service Provider Survey for the Hamilton Immigration Partnership Council (HIPC). The main objective of the 2014 Service Provider Survey is to document levels of awareness of services available to newcomers among service providers as well as service provider confidence in making referrals to these services. This report also aims to offer comparisons between this year’s findings and earlier findings as possible.

This short report gives overview of demographics of Hamilton’s Aboriginal residents in other to better understand this important community. The report highlights a growing youth population, a large age group in the 45-49 year age group, possibly due to the “Sixties Scoop”, as well as education, occupations and income. Finally the report ends with some data from a recent survey of Aboriginal people experiencing homelessness in Hamilton.

Funded by: United Way of Burlington & Greater Hamilton and Service Canada

This Profile of North Hamilton describes the trends and conditions within North Hamilton, including the North End and Keith neighbourhoods. The report was commissioned by North Hamilton Community Health Centre and the Hughson Street Baptist Church. This profile will inform NHCHC’s Board of Directors’ strategic planning process as they chart the future directions of the NHCHC to fulfill its mission “to enable health through healing, hope and wellness” and realize its vision of “no obstacles to health”. The Profile of North Hamilton reveals a community of resilience, a community facing challenges, and a community poised with opportunities.

Community Partners: North Hamilton Community Health Centre and the Hughson Street Baptist Church

The purpose of this review is to determine what resources and structure Grocer Ease requires to ensure that it meets the needs of the community, the mandate of its funders, and supports the mission of Banyan Community Services. The review showed that participants are extremely satisfied with the program. Challenges around communication, documentation, emergency procedures, program accreditation, and funder requirements, among several others, are explored, and recommendations are offered to address these issues.

The Hamilton Immigration Partnership Council (HIPC) again enlisted the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton (SPRC) to conduct an evaluation of the impacts of the HIPC’s work in the community and to quantify its members’ contributions to its work in 2014. This follows SPRC’s evaluation of HIPC contributions and impacts in 2012 and 2013.

This report is the result of a consultation process initiated by the City of Hamilton (Housing Division) and involving the Women’s Housing Planning Collaborative (WHPC). WHPC exists to develop, coordinate, advocate for and facilitate a gender specific, comprehensive and seamless system of services to meet these stated needs.

For over a decade in Hamilton there have been various tables and task forces established to address the reality of street level sex work and its impact on neighbourhoods from various angles. From The Barton Street Community Partners for Crime Prevention (2003) to the Sex Trade Task Force (2003 – 2008) and now the current Sex Work Engagement Project Team, (2011-present), many community partners have come together in various configurations over the years to address this issue.

This report summarizes the evaluation of the YWCA Hamilton’s Financial Literacy Program, which aimed to reach 80 disadvantaged women in the course of developing a model for financial literacy and training that could be incorporated into existing programs. The evaluation examined program effectiveness, adaptability/viability, and partnerships.

Improved unemployment rates, a booming real estate market and an influx of young adults are proof of Hamilton’s “economic renaissance,” but the prosperity has not reached across the city, says a new report from Hamilton Community Foundation.

Hamilton’s Vital Signs report for example, that rents have risen by over four percent in one year and rental vacancy rates have dropped to an unhealthy level of 1.8 percent, foreshadowing a looming housing crisis. Unemployment rates are better than the provincial average, but some 57 percent of Hamilton’s workers are in “insecure employment” with less access to benefits and pensions, the highest rate across the GHTA.

“This Vital Signs report reaffirms many reasons for the city’s new sense of energy and optimism,” said Terry Cooke, President & CEO, “but also that disparity remains a critical issue. Many Hamiltonians still struggle to secure basics such as safe, affordable housing, secure jobs and an income above the poverty line.”

The goals of this evaluation of the YWCA Hamilton’s Bridging Internationally Trained Individuals Program are to explore and offer recommendations for strengthening several elements of the program, including the effectiveness of recruitment and marketing strategies, partnerships, participant commitment, differences in employment between streams, relative merits of a community agency delivering the program, and eligibility requirements. The YWCA Hamilton’s Bridging Internationally Trained Individuals Program aimed to provide training and support for Internationally Educated Persons (IEPs) to bridge soft skills, communications, and cultural awareness issues as well as identify and access opportunities for technical upgrading to improve employability in the environmental and information and communications technology (ICT) sectors.

This evaluation gathered the stories of men who had some level of engagement with discharge planning offered by The Bridge upon release from the local Detention Centre. One focus group was conducted with nine men and six men agreed to individual key informant interviews assessing how The Bridge and/or other organizations assisted them in transitioning from jail back into the community.

This report provides an evaluation of the Building Better Futures program run through the Neighbour 2 Neighbour Centre. The purpose of this evaluation has been to illuminate project outcomes, key findings and lessons learned, opportunities for improvement, and implications for the project’s future.

This report is about services to help homeless women in Hamilton, including statistics on the first 18 months of the Supporting our Sisters project in partnership with the Women’s Housing Planning Collaborative. Read more »

Funded by: United Way of Burlington & Greater Hamilton, City of Hamilton, and Government of Canada

This report describes how the unfairness of inequality is damaging both our economy and our society, provides Hamilton specific data about income inequality and poverty, and highlights ways that these trends can be reversed. Read more »

Funded by: United Way of Burlington & Greater Hamilton and labour unions

The Affordable Housing Flagship has been working with the City of Hamilton’s Housing Division since 2010 to develop a 10 year housing and homelessness action plan for the community. The plan is now complete and has two parts:

This evaluation explores the impacts of the Hamilton Immigration Partnership’s (HIPC) work since its inception and attempts to quantify partner contributions to the HIPC’s work. Findings show that HIPC partners have contributed between $1,447,638 and $1,518,323 worth of in-kind contributions, direct contributions, and leveraged funds to immigration-related projects in Hamilton since 2009. In terms of impacts, respondents draw on the HIPC’s research reports and resources, are more involved in newcomer issues, and collaborate with other organizations to better meet newcomer needs because of their involvement with the HIPC. Respondents also emphasized communication and information sharing, greater collaboration, and developing or adjusting specific services as key impacts of the HIPC’s work.

This local evaluation of the Community Action Program for Children (CAPC) uses numerical data from program partners to identify numbers of sub-groups of participants and visits within each program, and presents stories from program partners about ways that their programs are making a difference in individual families’ lives, as well as challenges or unexpected outcomes. Findings suggest that continued collaboration could help partners to address common challenges such as reaching out to newcomer communities, young fathers, and socially isolated clients; recruiting, coaching, and mentoring volunteers; and finding supports for community members seeking a service that is unknown or unavailable.

This bulletin shows that youth aged 20-24 in the Hamilton CMA have seen a 50% decline in their employment earnings since 1976, largely due to your workers facing more precarity in the labour market. While the City of Hamilton’s youth unemployment rate is still high, Hamilton’s rate out-performed all other communities during the most recent recession. This is the sixth in a series of occasional bulletins that focus on issues highlighted in the Hamilton’s Social Landscape report and bring attention to more recent trends.

Change provides an opportunity to become more responsive. For STAR Hamilton, going through organizational changes provided an opportunity to hear more from tenants in three areas served by the organization (Oriole Crescent, Kenora Avenue, and Congress Court) about what they think is working in STAR’s programming, and what could be improved. We consulted with tenants in these through surveys (in English, French, and Arabic) and interviews. We also spoke with community partners to come up with recommendations on how STAR can better meet the needs of people living the areas it serves.

This is the fifth in a series of occasional bulletins that focus on issues highlighted in the Hamilton’s Social Landscape report and bring attention to more recent trends. This report shows that the since 1993, women have been responsible for 100% of the full-time, full-year job growth in Hamilton. But the gap between men and women’s full-time, full-year pay is larger than it was in 1976.

This is the fourth in a series of occasional bulletins that focus on issues highlighted in the Hamilton’s Social Landscape report and bring attention to more recent trends. This report shows that the Hamilton CMA’s working age employment rate has recovered quickly from the last recession. But there has been more growth in part-time, part-year, and seasonal work than in full-time, full-year work in the last few decades.

This is the third in a series of occasional bulletins that focus on issues highlighted in the Hamilton’s SocialLandscape report and bring attention to more recent trends.

This report shows that Hamilton’s unemployment rate has recovered quickly from the last recession. The report suggests ways to further improve Hamilton’s economy such as investing in childcare programs, attracting more skilled immigrants to Hamilton and making Hamilton a living wage community. Read more »

A new series of profiles on the reality of poverty in Hamilton’s electoral ridings titled “Action on Poverty” from the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton. These reports are part of a larger series of 53 profiles, one for each riding in the GTA and Hamilton coordinated by the Social Planning Network of Ontario.

Each profile contains facts and figures about poverty and challenges facing residents in each of the ridings. They identify how the work of community groups, service providers, and advocacy groups in communities across the Golden Horseshoe are coming together to challenge poverty. These stories call attention to the wide range of anti-poverty initiatives that are taking place within each community and across Ontario. Read more »

This report summarizes the activities, key findings, and recommendations from SPRC’s year-long Strengthening Newcomer Services project, which was undertaken with community partners Workforce Planning Hamilton, Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, Community Information Hamilton, and the Hamilton Immigration Partnership Council. In a series of recommendations, the report suggests that the capacity of informal networks, often the first point of contact for newcomers, be supported and strengthened in order to bridge the gaps in awareness between newcomers and formal services.

A neighbourhood can’t build a hospital or find a cure for cancer. But in fact, improvements to the physical, social, economic, and cultural environment in cities and neighbourhoods is best recipe for better health. This short four-page report outlines some major ways that neighbourhoods can improve residents’ health. These actions often have the greatest impact for those residents who often face social exclusion.

This purposes of this evaluation of the Hamilton Community Action Program for Children (CAPC) program are to 1) assess the long-term impacts of CAPC in east Hamilton since 1993; and 2) offer recommendations for program improvement. A mix of quantitative and qualitative methods were used to build this assessment. Findings suggest that the program has contributed to generally improving outcomes for young children in east Hamilton, and that community organizations collaborate with one another more because of CAPC’s work.

In the City of Hamilton, 319 students participated in the Youth Confidence in Learning and the Future Project survey. Of the students surveyed, 53% identified as female, while 47% identified as male. The largest response by grade was 53% from grade 10. Another 18% surveyed were in grade 12, 13% were from grade 11, 53% were from grade 10 and 16% from grade 9.

This report focuses on the City of Hamilton and looks at youth confidence in learning, in and outside of school and confidence in their futures. It also looks at the level of impact youth feel they can have on their communities and in the world.

The United Way commissioned the SPRC to complete a set of demographic profiles of some of Hamilton’s neighbourhoods, as to aid the United Way of Burlington & Greater Hamilton and its agencies and stakeholders to better understand the neighbourhoods they are serving.

The profiles in this report are meant to give some highlights of the demographic, income and health data available for these neighbourhoods. The selected indicators are based on a large part of what service providers often ask the SPRC for when preparing strategic plans or grant proposals: age breakdowns, poverty rates, cultural diversity, educational attainment and housing, as well as health outcomes.

Funded by: United Way of Burlington & Greater HamiltonCommunity Partner: United Way Reference Committee

This report is based in part on research from “The Right to Choose Where to Live: Challenging the radial separation by-law and perceptions of supportive and supported housing in Hamilton”. Meng (Dolly) Lin, a McMaster University Health Sciences student, completed a study on Hamilton’s radial separation bylaw and perception of supportive housing in Hamilton. During the course of her research, Ms. Lin and Mohawk College student Veronic Sanyaolu interviewed neighbours, residents and staff members of supportive housing facilities.

To aid the United Way and service providers to better understand the neighbourhoods they are serving, the SPRC was asked to complete a set of profiles of some of Hamilton’s neighbourhoods. This profile is the most in-depth in the series, but still only captures a small part of the assets and challenges within the McQuesten neighbourhood. Demographic information about the ten other neighbourhoods that are part of the city’s Neighbourhood Action Strategy is available in the Neighbourhood Profiles report.

This report begins with an overview of population characteristics and a summary analysis of key trends affecting Hamilton’s downtown. This is followed by an overview of health and future growth potential in Hamilton’s downtown. Finally, after this narrative section, a summary of charts that form a profile of the downtown area is presented. The data is mainly drawn from Statistics Canada’s 2006 census, along with more recent health data from Hamilton’s Code Red series, as well as high school completion data from this same series.

In Hamilton, 30,000 people are working and still living in poverty. How is this possible? It used to be that if someone was having a tough time making ends meet, the simple answer was “get a job”. However, it has become increasingly difficult to find employment with adequate wages to lift workers above the poverty line.

Consultations about what a living wage should include were conducted in public forums and workshops across Hamilton, since the launch of the living wage campaign in 2006. Over 600 Hamiltonians participated in these events, and many completed sample budgets to indicate what they would or would not include in a living wage budget. To calculate a specific living wage for Hamilton, generalized budgets were developed based on trustworthy data sources about actual living expenses in Hamilton.

Funded by: United Way of Burlington & Greater HamiltonCommunity Partner: Living Wage Group of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, Living Wage Calculation Sub-Committee

The United Way of Burlington and Greater Hamilton requested that the SPRC prepare a report on Hamilton seniors to give the United Way and the community a picture of how Hamilton’s seniors are faring. The collaboration on this report included the Hamilton Council on Aging, who helped guide and improve this report.

The purposes of this research are to: determine the value of short-term employment related workshops accessed by dislocated workers at HJAC; explore options for maximizing these benefits to laid off workers and to the wider unemployed/underemployed population; and explore the best venues for providing this type of training.

This report focuses primarily on groups or social issues for which data is already collected and relatively accessible. There are many groups of Hamilton residents for which there is a scarcity of data, but yet still require attention by the community to improve conditions for all. These would include many significant segments of our society including: the lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender and queer community, precarious workers, temporary foreign workers and grandparents raising their grandchildren, among others.

This report was commissioned by Mission Services of Hamilton and attempts to give at least a partial picture of the challenges and conditions faced by homeless women in Hamilton with the aim of aiding Mission Services to better understand this population and plan for potential additional services.

Over 60,000 persons speak a language other than English at Home, representing 13% if Hamilton’s population. The last census in 2006 counted 60 different languages spoken by Hamiltonians at home. This poster gives a snapshot of Hamilton’s linguistic diversity.

Funded by: United Way of Burlington and Greater HamiltonCommunity Partner: Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion

The goal of the Our Health Counts (OHC) project was to work in partnership with Aboriginal organizational stakeholders to develop a baseline population health database for urban Aboriginal people living in Ontario that is immediately accessible, useful, and culturally relevant to local, small region, and provincial policy makers.

The purpose of this evaluation is to explore the nature of issues related to housing and student nutrition programs as they relate to child development and well-being in East Hamilton. This evaluation integrates an independent evaluation of the Hamilton Partners in Nutrition program in the Community Action Program for Children (CAPC) area into a broader evaluation focusing on housing issues. The research supports recommendations for improving housing conditions in the CAPC catchment area, and improving Partners in Nutrition and CAPC programs more generally to enhance healthy child development.

In 2010, Hamilton’s Vital Signs pulled back the veil on a community making progress in some areas, but split by deep fault lines of inequality. Building on the work of the Hamilton Spectator’s Code Red investigation into Hamilton’s neighbourhoods, Vital Signs traced a picture of “two cities that share the same urban boundary but little else.”

This report was prepared by the SPRC in partnership with the United Way of Burlington and Greater Hamilton as a resource for addressing youth issues in Hamilton. It has been structured to focus on current knowledge about youth issues drawn from literature, practitioners and youth that is available with a particular emphasis on research that has been reported on youth over the last ten years in Hamilton.

The Hamilton Community Foundation engaged the SPRC to prepare this report to give an overview of the history of Student Nutrition Programs in Hamilton, how they operate as well as their strengths and the challenges they face. This report will be an aid for developing new strategies for addressing student hunger and a universal student nutrition program.

In 2010, the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board requested the help of the SPRC to review demographic data with an aim to update the Equal Opportunities Program with newer data and give a basis for the committee to re-examine which schools should be part of the program. This report communicates the results of the analysis conducted.

This report is a summary of all information collected for the Urban Arts Initiative consultation. The Urban Arts Initiative met for almost two years to better plan for arts opportunities with and for at-risk youth in the Hamilton community. The report describes the current literature on at-risk youth and the arts, identifies good models of practices, maps out the local opportunities and describes the advice and input solicited from community partners and young people. The report concludes with a recommendation for next steps for the steering committee.

This report aims to outline the state of housing in Hamilton, with an emphasis on affordable housing for our most vulnerable residents. These residents include people with disabilities, racialized minorities, people experiencing poverty and/or living in lower income brackets, newcomers, and Aboriginal people.

The Social Planning Network of Ontario’s (SPNO) report provides valuable information about Ontario and its evolving communities. Chalk-full of demographic and socio-economic data, the report is offered as a resource for program planning, needs assessments, advocacy initiatives, public policy development, research projects and more.

Since the SPRC published its ﬁrst report on women and poverty in Hamilton in May 2006, women remain disproportionately aﬀected by poverty in our community. This report is an update of the 2006 report using more recent data from Statistics Canada.

This report is the result of a day spent listening deeply to and reflecting upon the stories told by remarkable people with lived experience of poverty who came forward to be a part of the Hamilton Social Audit on April 22, 2010.

The Hamilton Community Action Program for Children (CAPC) is a national project with each province developing its own set of priorities and guidelines. In Ontario, there are ninety-two CAPC programs currently operating. This report is an evaluation of the Hamilton CAPC project for the April 2008 to March 2010 time period.

This report describes the process and findings of a study undertaken to conduct a community needs assessment of the trends, issues and unmet needs of people using the current array of community based corrections services providing support to clients in Hamilton. The impetus for this study comes from the expressed concern of a number of those agencies providing support to clients in their transition from incarceration to reintegration into the Hamilton community.

A small neighborhood in East Hamilton bound by Centennial Parkway, Barton, Queenston Road, and Lake Avenue Park, right next to the border between Stoney Creek and the original Hamilton, Riverdale West is home to a vibrant mix of citizens from around the world.

These Community Profiles have been developed to aid in understanding the unique social characteristics important to, yet distinct about, each community within the City of Hamilton. This series of reports will look at a number of demographic variables across each community within the City of Hamilton.

The purpose of this research was to develop a better understanding of local child care needs from the perspectives of key stakeholders, and to identify innovative strategies that complement the existing child care system and meet current needs.

This guide, sponsored and supported, by the Community Services Department of the City of Hamilton and by the Hamilton Training Advisory Board, was developed initially in support of planning efforts upon which both sponsors are embarking. In the case of the Community Services Department, information in the guide will inform its Human Services Planning Initiative. In the case of the Hamilton Training Advisory Board, it will provide important background for its integrated labour market planning initiative.

As part of an anti-racism organizational change initiative, the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Hamilton (CCAS) partnered with the SPRC. The role of the SPRC in this partnership was to consult with CCAS staff, management, volunteers, foster parents, directors, and members of racially and culturally diverse communities. The purpose of these consultations was to invite input and feedback about current policies and practices of the CCAS, and to consider how these policies and practices could be more inclusive.

This report is an evaluation of the three year project led by the Street Youth Planning Collaborative and based on the 27 recommendations in the 2005 Addressing the Needs of Street Involved and Homeless Youth in Hamilton report. It reflects the project’s status as of June 30, 2009 when the community research was completed.

The report provides an overview of the methodology used in the study, the evolution and operation of the Under the Willows program, and findings from consultations with key stakeholders. A set of conclusions are also included, based on a synthesis of findings.

The SPRC was contracted by Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion (HCCI) to do a broad stroke review of the successes and challenges experienced throughout the Enabling Institutional Change Through Community Partnership and Civic Participation project. The information for this evaluation came through a review of written evaluations by participants of numerous training activities that took place by HCCI as well as conversations with staff members and a review of training materials produced by HCCI through this funding. Training evaluation reports generated by HCCI staff were also scanned for feedback and the evaluator attended HCCI’s Report to the Community in March, 2009.

In 2008, the Homelessness Partnership Initiative (HPI) provided funding to The Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Hamilton (CCAS) in partnership with The Children’s Aid Society of Hamilton (CAS) and the Street Youth Planning Collaborative for a three-pronged project- 1) supporting two transitional housing projects for street-involved and parenting youth, 2) providing aftercare support to youth in the community to help maintain housing and 3) to develop a community plan for reducing the risk of street-involvement for former youth in care. This report reflects the final result of the third prong.

These Community Profiles have been developed to aid in understanding the unique social characteristics important to, yet distinct about, each community within the City of Hamilton. This series of reports will look at a number of demographic variables across each community within the City of Hamilton.

The Stoney Creek United Church Wraparound project engaged the services of the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton in June 2008 to conduct an evaluation of the project in accordance with the terms noted in a proposal for funding to the Hamilton Community Foundation.

Commissioned by: The Stoney Creek United Church WraparoundFunded by: Hamilton Community Foundation

The purpose of the report is to assist Mission Services with service planning. The analysis of population characteristics is useful in understanding the needs of the community. Identifying what services and supports are currently available and geographically accessible to the population will help to avoid duplication of services.

On March 26, 2008 the SPRC, the Street Youth Planning Collaborative (SYPC) and a group of students from the McMaster University School of Social Work 4J03 Class hosted a community discussion about drop-in programming for street-involved and homeless youth in Hamilton. This report reflects the proceedings from that event.

At the end of the first year of the Youth Engagement and Action in Hamilton project, the staff wanted to check in with the community to talk about the successes and learnings of the project and to hear from the community about their perspectives on youth engagement. This report reflects proceedings from that check-in event.

The Social Planning Network of Ontario received funding in 2006 from Human Resources and Social Development Canada’s Social Development Partnerships Program to carry out a two year project in five pilot projects in communities across Ontario that would enhance social inclusion practice and policy related to supporting families with children. The project in Hamilton was designed to engage families with young children in a process that builds their capacity to support their children’s learning and development and shapes strategies for broadening community support for welcoming and including all children. Hamilton, through the Social Research and Planning Council, elected to focus activity in east Hamilton, primarily the Riverdale community.

Funded by: Human Resources and Social Development Canada’s Social Development Partnership Program

Creating Positive Space for the LGBTQ Community is an executive summary of the longer report, Report on the Needs Assessment of the LGBTQ Community of Hamilton. This summary highlights the fear that LGBTQ people have in terms of “coming out” at places of work, school, and faith communities for example.

A small neighborhood in East Hamilton bound by Centennial Parkway, Barton, Queenston Road, and Lake Avenue Park, right next to the border between Stoney Creek and the original Hamilton, Riverdale West is home to a vibrant mix of citizens from around the world.

This needs assessment came about because of the vision of the Board of Directors for Hamilton Pride Festival Inc. (Hamilton Pride). After conducting a short survey at Hamilton Pride 2005, the board saw a need to expand the scope of their survey and look more broadly at issues for the LGBTQ community in Hamilton. Hamilton Pride Festival Inc. partnered with the SPRC to conduct the data collection, analysis and report writing. Through surveys, focus groups and key informant interviews, this community based research has helped to articulate some of the many needs of the LGBTQ community in Hamilton with recommendations as to how these could be addressed effectively.

The purpose of this research was to develop a better understanding of local child care needs from the perspectives of key stakeholders, and to identify innovative strategies that complement the existing child care system and meet current needs.

This report is intended to provide community members and service agencies with a progress update on the implementation of the Addressing the Needs of Street Involved and Homeless Youth in Hamilton report.

In 2006, the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) initiated an evaluation process aimed at gathering data on the diversity of the staff in the organization. The administration recognized that it lacked the statistical data necessary on staff diversity to fully inform human resource practices connected to staff recruitment, retention and development initiatives. Working with community leaders to develop a comprehensive equity policy, the board saw conducting a Diversity Audit as another step in becoming a diversity-competent organization.

Measuring Homelessness in Hamilton (2007) is to identify the central factors that impact homelessness and to provide a basis for the community, the City and senior levels of governments to discuss and address homelessness. This report builds on the information in On Any Given Night (2006) by presenting new data on factors contributing to homelessness, a demographic profile of people experiencing homelessness and key service utilization statistics.

Community Partner: City of Hamilton – Housing and Homelessness Division

This report is a collection of information and some practical guidelines that we hope will help as you work with and engage youth in Hamilton. This collection is an attempt to summarize and explain Hamilton-specific youth engagement and facilitate a concerted effort to move from the idea of youth engagement in our community to creating impact through youth-supported change.

In July of 2007, Mission Services of Hamilton approached the SPRC with interest in developing a better understanding of a specific area in Hamilton’s East end. The area’s boundaries include Ottawa Street (to the West), Parkdale Avenue (to the East), Burlington Street (to the North) and Main Street (to the South).

This short report provides a snapshot of the Mission Services target area, considering a range of population characteristics as well as community supports and services that are currently operating within those boundaries.

The SPRC was commissioned by the St. Joseph’s Immigrant Women’s Centre to detail a plan for evaluation of the Facilitating Inclusion Leadership Enhancement project and then charged with the task of implementing the plan.

On October 10th, 2006, a forum was held in the community to provide youth with the chance to talk about issues that were most important to them. Many different youth were there, representing many different issues. In the morning, youth got together with other youth and talked about the things that impacted them the most. Seven key issues youth face in Hamilton were identified. In the afternoon, service providers (ie. teachers, social workers, and shelter staff) and youth got together to talk about strategies for change. This report is a summary of those group discussions.

Funded by: Ministry of Children and Youth Services, Ministry of Community and Social ServicesCommunity Partner: Youth Taskforce

The SPRC committed to implementing the Immigrant Skills Workforce Integration Project (ISWIP) with funding from the Hamilton Community Foundation. The purpose of the project was to develop a community plan for Hamilton that would fully integrate immigrant professionals and trades people into the local labour force at their optimal skill level. There are eight sections in this report that provide a complete record of the project and development of the community plan for Hamilton.

The needs assessment is to determine the service needs, (informational, supportive, medical) of people living with hepatitis C in Hamilton in order to help the network prioritize future actions and activities accordingly. The purpose of this report is to make those findings available to: Hamilton Hepatitis C Network members, community services providers who work with HCV target populations, and to everyone interested in HCV prevention and education.

In the summer of 2005, the Hospitals-Shelters Working Group determined that data was needed to better understand the population of people moving between shelters and hospitals. The objectives of this data collection process were to learn more about this population, to learn about the patterns and trends in movement between hospitals and shelters and to use this information to understand the potential implications for service.

Women in Hamilton have a poverty rate of 22% compared with men’s rate of 18%. A deeper look reveals further inequities between men and women in select categories. There are also significant differences in poverty rates between women of different backgrounds.

The City of Hamilton increase in diversity necessitates a review of the operation and design of the sectors which seek to serve the public to ensure that all needs are being met. In response to this message, in September 2005, a working group and steering committee, led by Sport Hamilton, sought to better understand the issues of access to recreation for children and youth from cultural and ethno-racial groups in our community. The SPRC was commissioned to consult the community to further localize and understand the barriers faced by diverse ethno-racial children and youth.

Phase One of the Barton Street Community Partners for Crime Prevention took place in 2000. It included extensive consultation with primary stakeholders including youth, women, sex trade workers, residents and business people. The project included an extensive needs assessment into the issue of women and the sex trade. It concluded that work must be done from a harm reduction perspective and that there was a real need to create a common understanding of the issues of sex trade work before any systemic change could take place. These concepts were incorporated into the Phase Two project.

The purpose of the Consultation Session was to identify ways that the transition out of care and into adulthood could be made more successfully. This report is based on the input from these discussion groups, and is provided for the Working Group who will be developing the Youth Leaving Care policy. The report briefly reviews the methods used for collecting the information, as well as analyzing the findings. The results section identifies each question and the key themes that were found. The conclusion draws attention to several of the key findings of the discussion.

This indicators report notes key factors impacting homelessness in Hamilton. Local information on factors contributing to homelessness, a demographic profile of people experiencing homelessness and some service utilization statistics are included in this report. Data presented here reflects the most recent information available. The purpose of this document is to provide information about the nature of homelessness in Hamilton. It is not intended to be a policy statement but rather to inform the ongoing discussion about the best way for the City, the community and senior levels of governments to address the issue of homelessness in Hamilton.